


It Isn't Easy

by A_Moonlit_Memory



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, chara and frisk help each other through stuff, everyone is ok and out of the underground, nightmare buddies, papyrus undyne and alphys are mentioned briefly, this is pretty much just self indulgent chara and frisk friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 13:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Moonlit_Memory/pseuds/A_Moonlit_Memory
Summary: Frisk contemplates everything they and the Dreemurr kids have been through as they get ready for bed.





	It Isn't Easy

The sink turns on with a hiss. You gaze into it, the steady stream falling directly into the drain. It’s a consistency in your life; this water always falls down the same way when you turn it on, at the same time each night, wetting your toothbrush and cleaning your mouth with the same circular motion. much of your life is made up of consistencies. Of routine. In the game-underground, that is, you always met the same monsters. Everything took place in the same order, with small alterations. Butterscotch or cinnamon? Touch the spaghetti or don’t? It didn’t change the result of your journey, not really, but it was what made your journey worthwhile. Small changes, tiny snippets of surprise and joy and connection. Those alterations were still what got you through the day, now that you were out of the underground.

The sink’s still on. You startle, realizing you’re wasting water, and lean over to turn it off with a tiny hand. You quickly pull out your toothbrush and begin scrubbing at your teeth.

When you leave the bathroom, feeling clean and ready for bed, you turn the light off with a small click and make your way to your room at the end of the hall. The door is already open.

Chara is already in the room when you get there, sitting on their side of the bed and staring at nothing. You snap for attention, causing them to whip their head around.

“Greetings, Frisk,” they say. They smile, but it is hollow and forced, not at all like the smiles that transpire when you roleplay together or convince Undyne to use you as weights (you both weigh nothing to her, really, but she’s willing to play along.)

You smile back, probably just as forced. You okay? You sign, walking closer.

They sigh, mouth turning up at the corners a little more genuinely. “Yes, I apologize. I simply dread another dream full of night terrors.”

 

You nod sympathetically. The first times you had come out of the underground, still unable to save the Dreemurr siblings, you woke up almost every night in cold sweats and visions of the many ways you had died. You had refused to tell Mom the contents of your dreams; she had been through enough without trying to comprehend resets and the existential dread that came with it. Besides, even Mom had slipped up a few times, taken your life, and she couldn’t take that back. No matter how much regret filled her eyes at your final breath.

Sometimes you would text Papyrus, and he always answered as he was always awake. he would help, to an extent, as he had never killed you. He was the only one. He never seemed concerned about your horrible nightmares, instead cheering you up through distractions and jokes, but you had a feeling it was a disguise. Papyrus seemed skilled in hiding concern.

Then the true resets began. You still don’t quite understand why; Chara, Asriel and you had had many lengthy discussions as to who started them, who began the killing. You had assumed it was Chara, at first, but they had only started to accept your murderous ways after watching you slaughter innocents. Flowey- or Asriel, take your pick- had long lost control of the resets. He had explained that the genocide routes had come from another force, higher and out of any of your power. And you were their puppet, their way of connecting to this world. You barely understood it, but you had cried in relief once Asriel assured you it wasn’t your fault. You barely remember how you felt during the resets, but your nightmares do. Flashes of their deaths fill your dreams, dust coating your trembling body as you mindlessly move forward.

So you still have nightmares, but they are now based in guilt.

When you finally freed Chara and Asriel, you were overjoyed. You had found a way to change the game, break free from the control of the puppet master. And you were all happy. It was a struggle, every day, to move forward after the trauma you three had faced. But you did your best; you went to therapy, helped each other, talked to the adults. It was getting better.

Early on, you realized that Chara had nightmares just as badly as you did. When they woke up in the middle of the night, clearly too dissociated to understand your mothers comforting words, you would stumble out of bed (also awake from your nightmares) and make your way to the living room. 

You would hand them their favorite green crayon and a piece of paper. instinctively, they would begin to draw, scribbling out whatever awful events had transpired in the dream. If they were events from life in 201X, Mom would recognize what the drawing entailed and wrap Chara up in her arms, assuring them that things were better now and they would never have to go through that again. When they were memories from your shared conscious in the game, you would recognize what it meant, and would stumble for a purple crayon. You would flip the paper over and draw an image with comforting familiarity. Chara and Asriel arguing over who got to play Yoshi in Smash Bros, Chara watching anime with Undyne and Alphys, Chara hugging you after you reached the Surface together. Something to remind them that things were different now.

It would ground them a little bit, enough for them to accept a hug from your open arms. You would stay like that for a while until Chara would pull back with puffy eyes. Mom would tuck you in separately, telling each of you how brave you were, then she would click your doors shut. You slept fine on those nights.

One night when you woke up in a cold sweat, teary and shaking, you realized that Chara would understand better than anyone. You tiptoed your way into their room, careful not to wake up Mom or Asriel, and gently shook them awake. Stirring in their sleep, their bright red eyes popped open and looked to you.

“Frisk?” They had muttered gently. Before they could ask what had happened, they noticed your shaking frame and tears glistening in the dark room. Lanky arms opened to offer a hug, which you gladly accepted, crying into their shirt as they murmured about the temporary nature of things, and how like everything else their pain would pass.

Eventually you both realized that sharing a bed would make things easier for both of you. So you were nightmare buddies now, always there to comfort each other.

 

This brings you to tonight, with Chara’s tired eyes gazing at you sadly.

It’s hard, but we need sleep, you sign.

Chara nods. “Yes, you are right. It would be pathetic to lose our will from lack of sleep now, would it not? After everything we’ve been through? No, you’re right, we can’t let sleep be the thing that takes us.” With this, Chara slips under their side of the plush covers. You nod and clamber into your side of the bed as well, short stature making it difficult.

Chara grabs their cup of water off the nightstand, popping medication into their mouth and washing it down. You do the same, though your small fingers make it hard to open the bottles. Chara assists you, as is yet another routine.

“Toriel will be in to check on us soon,” Chara states. “In the meantime, we should try to sleep.”

You smile and offer them your hand, which, as usual, Chara lightly squeezes. They reach for the lamp switch. All light is swallowed in the darkness.

“Goodnight, Frisk.”

You smile, thinking about how far you’d all come. How proud you were.

Voice strained and deeply out of practice, you manage a weak

“Goodnight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! this is my first fanfiction, it was just a self indulgent thing to help get rid of writers block. Plus I haven't seen enough content of frisk and chara being friends and helping each other??? Idk maybe I haven't been looking hard enough, anyway please let me know what you think! I love these kids


End file.
